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Climatic irony of an Arctic shipping lane

By Liu Shinan (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-16 08:03

The world media reported last week the successful sailing of two German cargo ships through the fabled "Northeast Passage" from South Korea along Russia's Arctic coast to Siberia and reaching Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

The Beluga Shipping GmbH, owner of the two German ships, was obviously proud of the feat: The first time a Western shipping company had successfully transited the Northeast Passage.

By taking the new route from South Korea to the Netherlands, ships can save 5,554 km and 10 days compared to the traditional route through the Suez Canal. The cost reduction is apparent. The firm's president said he was planning more voyages through the route in the coming months.

My first reaction to the news was: One of the last virgin oceans on Earth will be ruined.

Undoubtedly Beluga will not be alone. More shipping companies will join the race to use the new route through the Arctic, given the obvious benefits that the shorter journey will generate. It can be foreseen that the Arctic area will see fleets of ships sailing through Asia and Europe and North America every day.

The scenario is appalling, for it would mean the loss of the last of the clean oceans to commerce. Mass sailing activities through the area will definitely aggravate the melting of ice and global warming. Ironically, climate change was the very reason why the new passage through the icy waters was possible.

About 80,000 commercial vessels now sail the oceans across the world, discharging about 1 million tons of various pollutants into the waters every year. They have contributed significantly to the deterioration of global climate. Now with fleets of commercial vessels leaking oil and chemicals along the Northeast Passage, dumping engine-cleaning agents and sewage into the waters and emitting carbon dioxide into the air above the Arctic, the local temperature and climate will certainly change.

That change may be too slow to notice but the effects will be seen in not too distant a future. Just think about the atmospheric pollution caused by aircraft. Traces of flights may not be perceptible for ordinary people but scientists have estimated that the greenhouse gases - mainly carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide - emitted by the world's aircraft fleet contribute to 40 to 50 percent of global warming.

Climate change has caused many visible consequences - rising oceans, devastating hurricanes, floods and droughts, and extreme weathers that will cause more diseases and famine.

I have lived in Beijing for 30 years and thus have a very strong impression of climate change. When I first moved here from the south, summers were much cooler than in my hometown, Wuhan. Indoors were cool even during the day. I remember even pulling a cotton quilt for the night. But now, summers have become as humid as in the south. Smog shrouds the city for days or weeks, making the air sultry and the human body sticky. Thirty years ago, there was no smog at all.

Industrial activities in and around the city are certainly to blame for the air pollution but the lingering humidity is definitely the result of global warming.

The melting of ice in the Arctic and Antarctic regions has reached serious proportions. Sending more vessels through it will only accelerate the process. The ocean carriers would do better by putting an end to their plans of opening new routes through the Arctic waters. They should let the photo of "Mother Nature in Tears", etched by water dripping from a melting glacier in the Austfonna ice-shelf in Norway, be a lesson.

E-mail: liushinan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/16/2009 page9)